


so what is the bullet?

by chateauofmyheart



Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, Character Study, Coda, Extended Metaphors, Implied Relationships, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Moral Ambiguity, Possibly Unrequited Love, in a way? not really, is it??, lots of ambiguity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-05
Updated: 2020-05-05
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:07:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24027112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chateauofmyheart/pseuds/chateauofmyheart
Summary: "A man puts a bullet through another man’s skull and the bullet ends up in the cabinet behind him. The cabinet is disassembled and shipped off to some fucking faraway places: Mandalay, right, Timbuktu.The implication, of course, is that the shot manisthe cabinet. Dead and gone, never to be found in his many fucking pieces across the wicked and uncaring earth. Bye bye, mate."
Relationships: Tommy Shelby/Alfie Solomons
Comments: 14
Kudos: 36





	so what is the bullet?

A man puts a bullet through another man’s skull and the bullet ends up in the cabinet behind him. The cabinet is disassembled and shipped off to some fucking faraway places: Mandalay, right, Timbuktu. 

The implication, of course, is that the shot man _is_ the cabinet. Dead and gone, never to be found in his many fucking pieces across the wicked and uncaring earth. Bye bye, mate.

A man puts a bullet through another man’s skull and the bullet ends up in the cabinet behind him, and this time the cabinet isn’t a metaphor for the body. What happens, then, to the body? 

It’s dumped in a shallow grave on the outskirts of town, or washed up days later in the river, bloated beyond recognition, eaten by the pollution and the fucking fish. The cabinet can be shipped off or not, doesn’t fucking matter. The body is gone.

Yeah? You want to know what happens to the cabinet? Some fucking certainty, some clarity, since the whole thing is no longer a metaphor and the cabinet is just a cabinet? Aright. 

Let’s say the cabinet is chopped up and shipped off anyway. The bullet goes with it. Now they’re both gone, body and bullet, and the only evidence left is the rectangle on the floor where dust has piled up over the years.

Sweep away the fucking dust, then. All gone.

But now let’s say there is no cabinet. Was never one. A man puts a bullet through another man’s skull and the bullet goes right into the wall. Does he then have to get rid of the wall? Does he leave the ruined wall there? Does he leave the bullet there? Why the fuck would he do that?

Maybe the cabinet is still a metaphor for the body in this story. Maybe the man is shooting at nothing. Who’s to say?

He leaves the wall because he needs the wall. He leaves the bullet as a reminder.

Now, again: a man puts a bullet through another man’s skull and the bullet ends up in the cabinet behind him and the cabinet still isn’t a metaphor for the body. He gets rid of the cabinet and the bullet and not the body.

The body sits with him in the room. The rectangle of dust isn’t swept away. The body rots.

Eventually, the body is taken away. 

But there’s dust that has settled around its outline, so in a way, isn’t the body still there? And won’t the man sometimes lie his own body down on the floor, in the outline of it?

Why the fuck would he do that?

A man puts a bullet through another man’s skull and the bullet ends up in the cabinet behind him. The cabinet is disassembled, put into two barrels and shipped off, but somewhere else this time. 

Where? Fuck knows.

Okay, you want a fucking answer. Right, then. One barrel goes to Small Heath, Birmingham. The other barrel goes to hell. They end up in the same fucking place.

You don’t think hell is a real place? Okay. Both barrels go to Birmingham, then. Makes no difference.

And the body, well, he had brothers, didn’t he? And they find the barrels. Then they find the man. Then both men have bullets through their skulls. Or maybe the brothers decide a bullet is too merciful and beat the man to death with their fucking bare hands. 

So don’t send the barrels to Birmingham, yeah? Send them somewhere else. Like this, right: one to Russia, one to America.  
This is fucking ironic, now, because the body hadn’t had a chance to make enemies there. No real meaning to it, could’ve just as easily been Mandalay and Timbuktu after all.

But all this death, yeah, gets real fucking tiring after a while, doesn’t it? So say the man doesn’t shoot the other man. The bullet stays in the gun, the cabinet stays against the wall, the dust stays on the floor beneath it. The other man stays a man and not a body. The brothers stay in Birmingham.

After this, the story could go anywhere. The two men could become enemies or friends. They could be both. They could be neither. They could make a deal or not. They could never see each other again.

After all, there are a great many bullets in the world, and a great many men. The man’s death doesn’t belong to one man.

It could, though.

A man puts a bullet through another man’s skull and the bullet ends up in the cabinet behind him. The cabinet is disassembled, put into two barrels and shipped off to Jerusalem. 

Being in the holy land doesn’t make the body holy, or whole. It rots in the sanctified sands, untouched by a god it didn’t believe in.

Now wait, fucking hell, go back. Can a man’s death belong to another? If the answer is yes, then, does that mean that the man belongs to another? 

Is that a kind of love?

The man doesn’t shoot the other man and they can then become friends or enemies or lovers. Some strange mix of all three, perhaps. And the bullet stays in the gun, and the gun is in the drawer or the pocket, and the cabinet is against the wall.

The bullet isn’t what ruins the cabinet this time.

A man puts a bullet through his lover’s skull and the bullet ends up in the cabinet behind him. Nothing changes. The cabinet is still disassembled and sent away. 

Or he keeps the cabinet. He keeps the cabinet with the bullet buried in it, blood all over the splinters. Is the cabinet still a metaphor for the body? That one’s up to you, mate.

You want to know why he’d shoot his lover? 

Does it matter? 

There are a great many kinds of love, aren’t there?

A man doesn’t shoot another man and the other man shoots him instead. Maybe they do this here, or maybe in some warehouse, or maybe on a beach. There’s still a body and a bullet. Both still need to be removed.

The other man gets rid of the body and the bullet. He’s not sentimental, that one.

A man doesn’t shoot another man and the other man shoots him instead, and they are lovers. They can be enemies too, and friends. 

He still gets rid of the body. The body hopes he’ll keep the bullet.

Is that a kind of love? To keep the bullet? 

We’re back to the cabinet, now. The bullet buried in it. But this time the bullet didn’t go through the other man’s skull. There is no body.

The bullet whizzes past the ear. A warning shot, yeah? They can still become friends, or enemies, or lovers. Does the man still get rid of the cabinet? Does the metaphor still work?

A man puts a bullet through his own skull and the bullet ends up in the cabinet behind him. He could do this for many reasons. Cancer, for fucking one. 

A man puts a bullet through his own skull and the bullet ends up in the cabinet behind him and pretends it was the other man who shot him. He does this because they are friends, or enemies, or lovers. 

He does this because it’s just him and the cabinet, now. And the cabinet is still a body, even if it’s his own.

Eventually, the body gets taken away. Does the other man come lie in its outline in the dust? Is the other man still fucking alive? 

What happens with the cabinet? Is it still a metaphor for the body?

It’s disassembled and sent in two barrels to Jerusalem. Not holy or whole, but at least it recognizes the god in the sands.

A man puts a bullet through another man’s skull and the bullet ends up in the cabinet behind him. The cabinet is disassembled and shipped off to faraway places: Mandalay, right, Timbuktu.

He keeps the bullet. He calls it a kind of love. The body, well, it doesn’t fucking call it anything, does it?

**Author's Note:**

> find me on tumblr @chateauofmymind


End file.
